Too Late For Dreams
by Never give up Hope
Summary: Another girl falls into Middle Earth...but with a twist. She arrives hundreds of years after the war of the ring what still remains of the world she read about? OneShot, hopefully not MS.


**AN**

Ok this is a one shot, for the lord of the rings. Basically i was inspired to write this after reading so many girls fall into middle earth stories where they all had the perfect happy endings. I wondered what would happen to a girl who fell into ME, hundreds of years after the war of ring, or even any of ME that tolkien really wrote about. HoweverI still want to apologise for anything canonI may have messed up, and point outI know Elrond did not die, and he is not dead when he talks to Tessa. So seriouslyI hope this is ok, and please tell me if it isn't

Thanks to my beta for checking this. And i do not own any of the works of Tolkien you may recognise.

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Tessa had been here for days now; she had met nobody and seen no signs of life. She didn't know where she was, or even how she got here, but as she looked around, she felt a sense of sadness, of loss, that she didn't understand and doubted she ever would.

The great house - if you could call it a house - must have been so beautiful at one time. Everything immaculate, people bustling through its great halls and vast gardens, but now; now it was empty. The house had fallen into disrepair, its majesty all but lost, and all that remained of the great peoples that must have once dwelt here was a memory, a memory of what was, but even that was fading, especially when no-one was around to remember it.

Tessa had felt lonely to begin with, but had not been afraid, for whatever else this place had been, once it must have been filled with happiness, with laughter, with joy and with hope. She could only imagine what it had once been like, to have walked these halls when people were here, to see the house in all its greatness.

She had found a plaque, a few days ago now, with writing she couldn't understand, she had ran her fingers across it, and brushed off the dust, in hopes that maybe, just maybe she would get a sense of what this place was; who had lived here. It had only been this morning when she had found the means for translating what it said into something she could understand, but what she had found out couldn't be real. It just couldn't.

She looked down at the plaque once more with its intricate runes, and still couldn't believe what it said, what remained of this beautiful house had once been the great Elven dwelling of _Rivendell. _

She couldn't believe she was here, really here, in middle earth. She had dreamed of coming here for so long, thinking it was stupid and something fan girls dreamed up to escape reality, and now she was actually here. Although it was nothing like they said. In fact it was something very different. Everybody talked of the beauty and grace of the elves, but now she could only see remnants of that beauty in the stones and walls of the halls around her, and nothing was left to indicate the elegance of what had been.

It had hit her earlier that she truly had dropped into middle earth, but probably hundreds of years too late to see any elves, and she was now seeing the disrepair these beautiful realms had come to under man's rule. From what she had seen of the outside world these were some of the better places, and Tessa found herself glad they were left untouched, that even though their beauty was beginning to fade, the memory of what once was still lingered, untainted by the evil man had created.

Even in middle earth under the rule of man it seemed like the world no longer recognised good, and those great kings in the line of Aragorn seemed to be long but spent, the years of peace a fleeting memory. She; in the little she had seen of places outside of the valley, had seen poverty and war stricken villages, and had heard tales of battles between countries, brothers fighting brothers. She had not realised then where she truly was, because; of all the tales she was told of middle earth she had never heard of one were the rule of men had turned against each other. It seemed that they had run out of evil to fight so they had created their own.

It seemed that no matter what world she was in, all men were wholly the same, they could not imagine a world without evil, without war, so they created their own, and then blamed their folly on others. She had heard people whisper: it was the elves fault for leaving, it was the dwarves fault for hiding, it was everybody's fault but their own. She could not believe this was what this once beautiful world had become. She realised that in a way Rivendell itself represented it, something so pure and good now reduced to rubble.

She now longed more than ever to meet the elves, those who had once dwelled within these walls, she had stared at the remaining pictures on the walls, and the statues of great warriors, great healers, and wondered what it would have been like to meet them. She had dreamed of coming to middle earth because she had dreams of chivalry, of bravery, of courage, of people so selfless that they could never have existed in her world, and apparently not in this one either.

That in itself posed another question, what was she doing here? What was her purpose here? If it wasn't to meet the elves, to learn from them, to perform some great task that she was destined for, then what was it? To see that even the greatest of realms can fall? To see her own dreams and delusions ripped to shreds? To see even more destruction, even more death?

Tessa shook her head. Be careful what you wish for. That really wasn't far from the truth, she dreamed of seeing Rivendell, oh she had seen it all right, and she had seen what remained of it. She wondered what remained of all the other Elven realms: of Lothlorien, of Mirkwood. Were they too mere memories of the beauty and glory they once were? She had hoped to see these places, but after seeing the sadness that this one land had brought her, she dare not venture out and see what the destruction of men had brought upon those other fair realms.

What was she to do now though? Where was she to go? Nobody would be willing to help. In the inhabited places she had seen, she would be merely another mouth to feed, a burden on the struggling peoples as it was, and she would not force her presence amongst them. Nor did she feel as if she could remain here any longer. The fading of this place was tearing at her soul, to see somewhere she had dreamed of as a child reduced to what it was now. Tessa just wanted to go home, however much pain, anger and destruction there was there, she could live with it, in the knowledge she was at least trying to bring good to the world, she was trying to clean up the chaos her people had made. Here; well here she had no idea what to do, maybe they were too far gone for help. Back home she had had no real dreams of a beautiful world one where she could live in peace, and find happiness, but there had always been that reassuring dream in the back of her mind, that one day however ridiculous she may get the chance to see the white tower of Ecthilion, the plains of Rohan, the Misty Mountains, the woods of Lorien, and most of all the last homely house that was Rivendell.

Now she was here, there was no safe thought for her to redraw to, there was merely despair, there was no hope here, just as there had been no hope in her world. That which Tessa had so strongly clung to even when all around had had fallen apart, now lay in ruins at her feet, too late for her to make a difference, and in truth nobody would ever know she was here. There was no one back home to miss her, and there was no one here to care, she was as just as much a nobody here as she was there.

Tessa did not really want to stay, but she had no other place to go, and slowly as the weeks passed Tessa realised: she would never get home. So she merely waited, waited till the time to which all mortals eventually come, she waited for her death, hoping maybe there she would find some happiness. For amongst the dying halls of Rivendell, she dwelt alone, moving silently amongst the empty corridors, amongst the overgrown gardens, her presence unnoticed by the warring peoples of the outside world.

Tessa did not sit idle though, and as the years passed slowly although there was no chance of the halls turning back to there former glory; Tessa did what she could with the basic tools beside her, the gardens were no longer as over grown and instead looked wild yet cared for. There was little Tessa could do for the buildings, yet Tessa's presence seemed to make what remained look less desolate, it was fading but its passing now seemed graceful, Despite this Tessa still felt its sadness.

She was lonely, and she was sad, as the years ebbed away, and Rivendell faded, so did Tessa's spirit. No matter what she did both she and this once great realm would die, and whilst these halls would be remembered in years to come by men in their tales, after a while even they would be forgotten. Tessa's existence was already unknown, to her world she did not exist, and to this world she never had, and never would.

Tessa had lost count of the years she had spent at Rivendell, living on what she could find, but she knew her time had come; she had ceased tending the gardens, and had simply existed for the sake of it, not because she had any will left. She was not truly old, but her spirit felt ancient, her time alone, had aged her heart. She knew inside that there was nothing left for her here, in truth their never was, she had lived because she must.

So as she watched the sunset in the ruins of the halls one last time, she watched the sun gleam off the plaque, a reminder to what once was, and felt the deep sadness of this place, but also of herself. She had done nothing, she had wasted her life in a dying land holding onto a memory of those who were no more, she only hoped maybe in death she would find some form of happiness. She no longer feared the unknown, so she faced death with a smile and as the sun went down so her life and spirit went with it. In some way she also felt the sadness of the valley, for its companion, and knew when she was gone, so it would truly have died.

_Tessa stared into the face of a man with grey eyes, and watched as his mouth formed a smile before he spoke to her._

"_Thank you." He said sincerely._

"_For what" she asked confused._

"_For giving your life and soul to a place not your own, however futile it may have seemed, thank you for keeping it's memory alive." He replied. Deep inside Tessa, she was glad that in doing what she had she had made at least one person happy._

"_Come." He said gently._

"_Who are you? Where are we going?" She asked confused._

"_I am Elrond. Lord of Rivendell." He answered and Tessa knew then that he truly was the lord of the halls she now knew so well._

"_And as to where we are going. Somewhere you can find the happiness denied to you in life." Elrond said to her._

"_But how?" She asked him_

"_You tied your spirit to Rivendell, and gave your life to keep it alive, and just as it will never truly die so our spirits will live on." Elrond had been right. Tessa did not truly understand it, but she trusted the lord of Rivendell, so she took his hand and together they stepped towards the unknown:a lord of one of the greatest Elven realms of all time, and the lady who had kept the memory of that place alive.

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Once again sorry for any mistakes, please review and tell me what you think. 


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